Word: vetoes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...urging of President Reagan, Congress is presently flirting with the line-item veto--the cure, we are told, to all our budgetary woes. It appears, after all, to be a simple remedy to a complex problem. As deficits continue and as budget deadlocks seem to recur annually, congressmen from both parties are starting to wave their hands, yearning for the White House to assume an additional power--and take away from them a frightful responsibility...
However, despite its simplicity, the line-item veto promises less, both to Congress and to the cause of a balanced budget, than the panacea it has been made out to be. It is too superficial and has too many potential side effects to cure our budgets' ills. Congress should defer to its better judgement and resist this instance of political quackery...
Proponents of the line-item veto argue persuasively that only the President completely represents the national interest. Congress, they note, has on more than one occasion produced a budget bristling with a hodge-podge of local and special interest-pleasing items. No dispute so far. But will the proposed solution, the line-item veto, solve the problem which proponents cite, or might the consequences be more drastic than proponents tell...
After all, the proposal does significantly alter the balance of power between the President and Congress, placing substantial new authority in the executive. The item veto is a powerful political tool, and there is no limit to how the White House can use it. In addition to simply cutting spending, the President can use his new veto for narrow ideological purposes or as a threat to individual congressmen...
...provisions appropriates, say, a small sum of money for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Even though this item would cost peanuts in the scheme of things, it would be among the first that a conservative President who opposes extension of the Voting Rights Act (such as Reagan) would veto. Thus, the President can legally take a tool ostensibly designed to reduce spending and use it instead to thwart the will of Congress and to kill programs to which he is ideologically opposed. Is this what we mean when we speak of representing the "national interest"? The merits of extending...